Game ideas and hoping on the Overwatch-genre bandwagon

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Overwatch has been out for a while now, and still seems quite popular. MOBAs too are still a popular genre of game. They also seem like a less-risky investment for game companies than MMORPGs, several of which haven't lived up to their hype. Moving on...

I have my own idea for a game like Overwatch. It'd have a GARGANTUAN character roster (like Pokemon!), which would keep growing until the game is no longer profitable. Maps would be varied, as would their game types. Buy-2-Play with a cosmetic-items shop. This isn't the entirety of it, as the concept is a work-in-progress. I don't even have a title yet, lol.

To sum up, whatever genre Overwatch belongs to, as well as MOBAs, seem to be a worthwhile investment. If it were possible for me to get one made, I wouldn't pass up the chance.

What do you think of that genre of games? Could such a game, with a roster as large as/larger than Pokemon be viable?

Character Examples (very early ideas)
- a humanoid cat with white-hot fiery claws
- a woman who uses paint-magic
- a light-based creature with wings and tentacles
- a super-soldier with bio-mechanical enhancements

Mobas actually dont seem to be a safe genre to be in. Most of them fail, crash, and burn. People always say it's an overcrowded genre; I say it's UNDER-crowded. Why? Because there's really exactly four games: Dota, League, HoTS, and Smite. Anything else? It dies. Comes out, tries to be Dota, falls apart, closes down. Even the mighty EA couldnt do it (they tried, they crashed and burned too). I cant think of any mobas other than those 4 that are at all relevant. The problem with multiplayer games like that is that they're only as good as the size of their fanbase. You need a large (very large) player community to make those work; if people cant find matches quickly enough and often enough, they lose interest. And this community needs to be there right from the start. But what also doesnt help is the whole e-sports scene; it keeps the focus on the main four games, and off of everything else. Dota and League in particular are also just too big to de-throne.

Overwatch itself isnt really a moba. It's basically Blizzard's answer to Team Fortress 2, which is an EXTREMELY similar game (right down to the ability to change characters mid-game). The only major difference is that characters in Overwatch all have abilities and an ultimate; that one aspect is probably inspired by mobas, but there's no tie to them otherwise.

You'd never get a game with a roster that large (pokemon-sized) to work though. Realistically, it wouldnt happen. Hell, I'm betting Blizzard had enough trouble getting Overwatch's starting roster to work (and that's not a huge roster). And even then, they got some stuff wrong; they already had to do a bunch of nerfs and buffs. I tell ya, balancing a game is HARD. Balancing one for multiplayer is much harder. The more elements you add in, the higher the chance that already-existing elements lose balance, and in a multiplayer game, you cant have that. If a couple of characters become better than all of the others, than those characters are the only ones anyone will use, which makes the game feel like it hardly has any, which causes all sorts of other issues... something like Pokemon gets away with it for a few reasons: 1. It's been around a LONG time, 2. Pokemon may claim to have a ton of different creatures, but many of them arent viable/relevant when it comes to competitive play. Evolutions, for example. When you've got one that has 3 stages of evolution, the first 2 stages may as well not exist. Pokemon effectively exist in "tiers", and only the highest tier is truly relevant, since it's an RPG otherwise it doesnt need to focus on that kind of balance much of the time. In a purely competitive game though, every character needs to exist on the SAME tier. That's hard to do. The current ruling moba games already have enough trouble keeping things balanced as it is (I sure wouldnt want to have THAT job...).

As for the genre Overwatch does belong to? It's hard to say. What it basically is, is a shooter that's gone away from the modern-military trends. We've seen a few of those lately (for example, Nintendo's Splatoon), games that are very colorful, unique, and dont even bother to try to be realistic (yay!) but they're still pretty rare... games like CoD or the ever-boring CS:GO still control the genre for the time being. But it's REALLY nice to see games like Overwatch pop up. Of course, anyone making a game like THAT has alot of hurdles to overcome. Blizzard managed it because they are, well, Blizzard. They've got decades of experience and HUGE resources behind them. But others will have to contend with LOTS of issues. One big nasty one (that I think is stupid) is that something like Overwatch tends to get a negative reception from the, *ahem*, "mature" gamer community, who think that actual color makes a game "kiddie". Cant have that, eh? Ugh. But people are ALSO getting really tired of gritty, "edgy" games too. It's a nasty situation for developers trying to put something new together. And of course, they've gotta deal with competing with whatever games are already out there...

A large roster seems to work for League of Legends, and it's got a roster close to that of Pokemon's Generation 1 (151 characters). Although you are right about there being characters that are frequently used in that game (LoL), such as Teemo, whom I see quite a lot of when I play LoL.

League, though, has also been around for a long time now and has a *monstrous* budget. ....it's also not very balanced. It's notorious for having a ton of heroes, but only having like 30 of them actually getting used. I think one problem they face is that they need to keep up a fairly constant stream of new heroes (so that it doesnt seem like they're slowing down on development), BUT, they dont have quite enough time for the actual balancing. They've just got too much to do and they are forced to do it at a pace that doesnt make sense... I dont envy that job, no sir. The ideal situation for them would be to NOT have to keep up that constant production of heroes at such an absurd degree, which would have the hero pool be quite a bit smaller right now, which would make it easier to balance (if you have ALL of the heroes actually relevant, you dont need such an absurd amount of them to make the game feel like it has alot of them, and you can produce them slower, but they kinda dug themselves into a rut)... but that's not how it went for them, unfortunately.

Still a good game though.

What are your thoughts on the MMORPG genre, Misery?

I've got a concept for one myself, where the playable races are all humanoid animals, the classes have a blend of sci-fi and fantasy to them, and the premise is somewhat akin to the plot of Avatar (the James Cameron film, not the suck-tastic white-washed live adaptation of the anime).

MMOs? Hard to say. Currently, WoW still dominates. Nothing has managed to come close to that. In addition, there are a TON of MMOs out there, despite WoW. The only way to stand out is to come up with a genuinely new idea, as gameplay goes... and pretty much nobody ever manages to do that. Simply changing up the theme and such wont do it; they've all been done by now. Something would have to be *really* unique. As it currently stands, a huge number of MMOs are often just seen as "clones" of another. Even WoW itself is an Everquest clone at it's core (the original Everquest, that is, from a billionty years ago).

Though even regardless of any of that, it's pointless for any developer to put one of these out without a good publisher (preferably a huge one) behind them. Advertising is extra important for MMOs, because the community needs to be there BEFORE the game comes out. Getting a working and non-irritating payment system is also likely difficult to do.

There's already games like Overwatch out, and with its success many more to come. I also wouldn't call Overwatch a MOBA, it's really nothing like a MOBA other than its Warcraft 3 inspired heroes. There are enough games that are called MOBAs that have their own, very distinct game design that Overwatch is really its own thing. It shares a lot more in common to class based games such as Team Fortress 2.

I think a huge roster would be detrimental to a game like this. Not only would it be tough to balance, but it would also increase the initial learning curve. Overwatch has a very simple but deliberate design that makes it clear to players what is happening, or what happened during a game. It does this in a variety of different ways; in its clean and distinct art design, in its various audio cues such as dialogue between teammates and callouts of ultimates, in its visual consistency (enemy effects are always red, friendly is always blue) and in its generous post death killcams. Having a huge roster would go against this simple design. A lot of new players aren't going to stick around if they're getting stomped repeatedly because they don't know a roster of 150 heroes and never see the same ones frequently enough that they learn how to counter them effectively.